ABOUT RIVERHORSE

Our business is helping your business Own Your Space.

Riverhorse was founded in 1998 to help clients engage stakeholders, achieve their most critical business objectives, and own a defensible market position. In other words, own their space.

From research to understand the real issues to developing tightly focused strategies and tactical plans, to hands-on assistance with implementation, we're ready to help you build a big brand and own your space.

When you need a strategy or plan to position your business for success, we have the know-how and process skills you need. If you’re struggling to find the time to run and build your business, we’ll help implement your plans to deliver what they been designed to do.

Your next step is clear

Our proven methods are a proven path to owning your space. You may not need to work harder or spend more. Just focus your efforts following our proven planning process.

Discover what clients say about our work

Chris Ward MBA, CMC
Founder & Senior Advisor, Business & Brand Strategy

Chris has held senior positions in retail, manufacturing, distribution and service businesses. He learned the fundamentals of customer satisfaction, strategic thinking, and branding first hand at one of Canada's largest retailers.

He has been a senior marketing consultant with a national management consulting firm; vice president sales and marketing for a large paper products company; vice president merchandising for a successful home centre operation; co-founder of an electronic security company that is now one of the largest in its field and; founder of a custom publisher that had some of North America's largest companies as clients.

As CEO of Riverhorse Brand Advisors, Chris has supported clients in the private, public and not-for-profit sectors to develop winning strategies and heavyweight brands. He has led and operationalized strategy development for national associations, financial institutions, and professional service firms as well as a wide range of B2B and B2C businesses.

Among the organizations he has worked with are TD Bank, Scotiabank, AT&T, Sprint Canada, Golf Canada (formerly Royal Canadian Golf Association), McLean & Kerr LLP, SOCAN, Waterloo Region Tourism Marketing Corporation, and many others.

Chris has a BA in Economics from the University of Toronto, and an MBA from the Rotman School of Management.

He is a Co-founder and Principal with Strategic Directions, a leader in facilitated strategic planning (www.StrategicDirections.ca) as well as Strategic Launchpad™, a consultancy bringing the benefits of strategic thinking and planning to businesses that are not yet ready to undertake a full-blown strategic planning project. (www.StrategicLaunchpad.ca).

As an Entrepreneur In Residence at the Ivey Business School at Western University, Chris is a coach and mentor for teams of students engaged in consulting projects with private and public sector organizations. He is a member of the Independent Review Committee for the Bullion Management Group. Previously, he was a chair and member of The Executive Committee, an international network of CEOs focused on improving their leadership abilities and achieving their professional and personal goals.

He has been a director of the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers and served on the Consumer Affairs & Communications Committee for Tarion, the new home warranty people. He was a founding director of the Myoblast for Muscular Dystrophy Foundation, a foundation established to support research into a promising treatment for Muscular Dystrophy.

Bob McCulloch MBA, FCMC
Senior Advisor, Business & Brand Strategy

Bob McCulloch is a strategic advisor and executive coach. Over the past 40 years, his clients have been private sector companies in a wide array of industries internationally – technology, health care, financial services, professional services, retail, distribution, manufacturing – as well as municipal, provincial, and federal levels in the public sector, and several not-for-profit organizations.

Bob’s primary focus is on the leaders of the organization, both individually and collectively. Through facilitation and coaching, they develop compelling vision and strategies for themselves and the organization, along with powerful initiatives that successfully implement those strategies.

He brings to the table the ability to facilitate diverse personalities, to synthesize disparate ideas generated in these facilitated sessions, and build consensus and commitment around the resulting powerful themes. The nature of the “business” doesn’t really matter – the strategic concepts are largely the same and related more to the nature of the human psyche.

Bob has helped leaders:

clearly and passionately define and articulate their vision for the future of their organizations, and themselves personally;
design, launch, and implement major strategic shifts in their businesses;
enhance cross-divisional and cross-disciplinary collaboration in multifaceted organizations to achieve astounding results;
build leadership capability through state-of-the-art leadership development programs; and
through coaching, build their capability to take on new and higher-level challenges.

Bob is Co-founder and Principal with Strategic Directions, as well as Strategic Launchpad™.

He holds a BSc from the University of Toronto, an MBA from the Ivey School, and a Certificate in Executive Coaching (CEC) from Royal Roads University. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Certified Management Consultants of Ontario (icmco).

Bob has been President of the Institute of Certified Management Consultants of Ontario (icmco), Chair of the Institute’s Fellows Committee, the Chair of the National Board of Directors of the Canadian Association of Management Consultants (CMC-Canada), and Chair of the Board of the Bloom Centre for Sustainability.